Opportunities for the full and equal citizenship of disabled people in Britain in 2020

Disabled people in Britain currently have very limited opportunities to exercise full and equal citizenship, despite the progress that has been made. Both the Government and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) agree this represents an unacceptable social injustice and have strategies designed to end this inequality. Disability 2020 assesses key health, demographic and policy trends in order to gauge the possible circumstances and experiences of disabled people by 2020 against the ambition of full and equal citizenship for all disabled people.

Disability 2020 is underpinned by an understanding of disability described below;

‘Disability’ refers to the disadvantage experienced by an individual as a result of barriers, such as physical and attitudinal barriers, that impact on people with mental or physical impairments and/or long-term ill health.

‘Disabled people’ refers to anyone who is disadvantaged by the way in which the wider environment interacts with their impairment or long-term health problem. This may vary over time.

Editor's comments - [ As data about disabled people is based on a range of different definitions of disability, different surveys produce different estimates of the number of disabled people.

According to the General Household Survey, there were around 11 million disabled adults in 2002. According to the Family Resources Survey, there were around 9.8 million disabled adults, and an estimated 700,000 disabled children in the UK in 2003.